Neighbours were crying and hugging one another Thursday morning as they watched raging flood waters slam into their homes in Kvam, in the valley of Gudbrandsdalen. Nearly 300 homeowners were evacuated during the night, as were others farther south in Eidsvoll and in several other communities around southern Norway as rain and snowmelt turned rivers and creeks into uncontrollable torrents.

In Eidsvoll, northeast of Oslo, around 40 homeowners were told to leave their homes because of fears a dam further upslope would burst. Others were evacuated in the counties of Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud and Telemark as officials categorized this year’s spring flooding as the worst since 1995, so far.

It may get even worse, with more rain predicted and more rapid melting of snow and ice at higher elevations. Instead of beginning to melt slowly at the end of winter, this year’s unusually cold spring kept the snow and ice frozen well into May. When temperatures suddenly soared last week, the annual run-off quickly turned into the gushing torrents now threatening so many areas that emergency crews were struggling to keep up with demand.

A new jury will be picked to decide the fate of boyfriend killer Jodi Arias as jurors say they have cannot agree on her sentence.

The 12 people who have sat through Arias' five-month trial will be dismissed after telling the judge they cannot agree unanimously on whether Arias, 32, should spend the rest of her life in prison or be given the death penalty.

The jury began deliberating the sentence on Tuesday, and earlier this week had told the judge they were at an impasse. However, they were instructed at that point to continue talks in hope of arriving at a decision.

According to a report released today by GMWatch, China destroyed three shipments of GM corn imported from the US.

The first two shipments are referenced on the website of the Zhuhai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, confirming that two illegal GM corn shipments entered Wanzai Port in Zhuhai City on May 7th, and were subsequently destroyed:

Recently, during inspection and quarantine of imported food from USA by a certain company, the Wanzai Office of Zhuhai Inspection and Quarantine Bureau (in Guangdong Province in the south of China) detected two shipments containing GM corn products, which are not in compliance with China’s “Entry and Exit of Genetically Modified Products Inspection and Quarantine Management Approach“. The Office destroyed the two shipments of corn according to the provisions.*

The existence of a third shipment was confirmed in a May 19th article appearing on news.china.com.cn titled, “Harbin intercepted a total of 115 kgs of GM corn seeds, which will be destroyed“:

Recently, the Harbin Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau intercepted inbound mail of 21 cartons of corn seeds from USA, totaling 115 kgs, which were detected as GM seeds. This is the first time that the Heilongjiang Provincial Inspection and Quarantine System has intercepted inbound corn seeds containing GM ingredients. These corn seeds will be destroyed.

wo members of the FBI’s elite counterterrorism unit died Friday while practicing how to quickly drop from a helicopter to a ship using a rope, the FBI announced Monday in a statement.

The statement gave few details regarding the deaths of Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw, other than to say the helicopter encountered unspecified difficulties and the agents fell a “significant distance.”

Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. And in February, it rescued a 5-year-old boy held hostage for six days in an underground bunker in Alabama.

British police arrested two more people on Thursday in a hunt for accomplices of two British men of Nigerian descent accused of hacking a soldier to death on a London street in revenge for wars in Muslim countries.

The two suspected killers, now under guard in hospitals, had been known to security services before Wednesday's daylight attack, security sources said. Another man and a woman, both aged 29, were detained on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

One of the assailants, filmed calmly justifying the killing as he stood by the body holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, was named by acquaintances as 28-year-old Londoner Michael Adebolajo - a British-born convert to Islam.

Iran denied on Thursday that one of its drones had violated the airspace of Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, Iranian media reported.

Bahrain's Information Minister Samira Rajab told Reuters on Thursday that an unmanned spy drone was found in the Gulf waters between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The incident could further inflame tensions between the two countries.

In a report carried by Iran's official IRNA news agency, an unnamed official at the Foreign Ministry denied an Iranian drone had violated the Gulf kingdom's airspace, without giving further details.

In a wide-ranging, impassioned speech to define US foreign policies on terror, President Barack Obama says the US has at times "compromised our basic principles" in the international war on terrorism since 9/11.

Mr Obama indicated he regrets past uses of torture or other tactics to gather terror intelligence, and said he is "haunted" by unintended civilian casualties in unmanned drone strikes.

But the president also said the US is safer because of his administration's targeted and continued work to combat terrorism, and insisted US actions have been legal.

He said: "This is a just war. A war waged in last resort and in self-defence."

South Korean war veterans were burning Japanese flags and images of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today, after a top Japanese politician defended the use of Korean women as sex slaves during World War II.

Former soldiers rallied outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to denounce comments made by Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka, that ‘comfort women’ were necessary to ‘maintain discipline’ in the Japanese Army.

The women, mainly from the Korean peninsula and China, were taken from their homes and made to work in military brothels to ‘comfort’ soldiers with sex.

Up to 25 people have been killed and others taken hostage in twin attacks on a military base and a uranium mine in Niger.

Niger's defence minister said 19 of the country's soldiers were killed and another 16 injured when a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside a barracks in Agadez.

At the same time least 13 people were injured and five suicide bombers killed in blasts at the Somaïr uranium mine in Arlit, about 800km north east of the capital Niamey and 100 miles from the barracks.

The attacks are believed to have been carried out by Islamic extremists based in neighbouring Mali.

A Turkish-Armenian blogger vowed to appeal a day after an Istanbul court sentenced him to more than a year in prison for blasphemy.

In a phone interview with CNN, Sevan Nisanyan accused Turkey's Islamic-rooted government of politically persecuting him.

"When I attacked the Islamist establishment they felt I overstepped my boundaries," said Nisanyan, who is a member of Turkey's tiny Armenian ethnic minority. "Here I am an Armenian doing something no Armenian has done in a Muslim country. This is really the height of boldness, of impudence. This is something you are not supposed to do."

Pounding rain soaked tornado-ravaged Moore, Oklahoma, on Thursday morning, and winds sent pieces of debris flying, hindering recovery efforts three days after the devastating tornado.

The number of injured rose as authorities announced that 353 people were hurt in Monday's massive twister. Another 24 were killed -- 10 of them children, including two infants, the state medical examiner's office said.

As water gushed through the streets Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the Oklahoma City area, including Moore, and a severe thunderstorm warning as well.

We don't yet know all the details surrounding Wednesday's killing in London. But the fact is we have seen this type of attack before, and even before one of the suspects started ranting to passers-by, we had a pretty good idea what to expect. This killing of a young British soldier was not an act of insanity. It was part of a pattern that has struck in many parts of the world before. This was the product of extreme Islamist radicalism we have all come to recognize.

Some will rush to blame Muslims or Islam for what happened, but it's important to be clear and not to mince words.

Islam is not the enemy. Muslims are not the enemy. Terrorism is not the enemy.

The enemy is the radical Islamist ideology that justifies any atrocity committed for political motives. The enemies are the people who promote this dogma and encourage others to engage in actions that offend and assault our humanity -- and theirs.

One of the two men involved in the Woolwich terror attack was known to a banned Islamist organisation and went by the name of Mujahid, The Independent has learned.

It was also reported today that the alleged killers, who are under armed guard in different London hospitals, were both known to security services.

Anjem Choudary, the former leader of the group, Al Muhajiroun, confirmed that he had known the man who was seen on video in the immediate aftermath of yesterday's horrific killing waving a cleaver with bloodied hands and making political statements.

The scene of Sweden's worst riots in years, Husby is on the surface at least a typically neat suburb of colorful playgrounds, manicured parks and low rise apartment buildings.

Conversations with residents of this immigrant neighborhood soon bring tales of fruitless job hunts, police harassment, racial taunts and a feeling of living at the margins that are at odds with Sweden's reputation for openness and tolerance.

Riots that began in Husby have spread across Stockholm over the last four nights in scenes reminiscent of London in 2011 and Paris in 2005 - outbursts with their roots in segregation, neglect and poverty. The Swedish model of welfare - such as its 480 days of parental leave for each child - hides another side.

Experts on adolescent behaviour say the apparent susceptibility of Canadian teens to the idea of suicide shows the need to change public discussion about this sensitive topic.

Among the suggestions being put forward are finding new ways to refer to the act, to put it in a more appropriate context and training crisis-intervention teams to be more aware of how young people can respond to a suicide in their midst.

A study published May 21 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that teens who knew of schoolmates who took their own lives were more likely to consider it or attempt it themselves — a phenomenon the authors call "suicide contagion."

Japanese government bonds (JGB) futures have been halted once again this evening as the market opens down over 1 point. 10Y yields smash 11.5bps higher to 1.00% and 5Y yields add 6bps to 47bps. These are quite simply unprecedented moves in what 'was' a safe asset class and impresses yet another VaR shock on the market (as we detailed here). What this means practically is that Japanese banks push further into insolvency land (as we explained here) today's move wipes out another 1.5% of blended Tier 1 capital off the entire Japanese banking industry. Since the 10Y JGB yield lows of 32.5 bps on April 5, the move is rapidly approaching a full percentage point, or the parallel shift amount that the IMF warned would lead to 10% and 20% MTM losses for regional and major banks respectively. Today's jump in 10Y yields continues the post-BoJ regime of greater-than-six-sigma moves... something no risk model can withstand for three weeks. Just a good job the BoJ didn't have anything at all to say about this totally disorderly fiasco yesterday.

Biting austerity cuts across Europe have not nibbled into the gilded lifestyle of Brussels lawmakers as a new survey shows the incredible perks they continue to enjoy at the expense of taxpayers across the continent.

From Italian MEPs who enjoy free haircuts to Maltese ones who get 52 free gallons of petrol a month, the perks - and expenses - continue unabated for the representatives of European Union nations.

MEPS from the 27 EU nations are paid salaries of £137million a year, according to research by German pricing watchdog Preisvergleich.de.

The huge sum paid by the 500million citizens does not include the lavish allowances for legislators’ staff.

France said on Thursday it hoped an initiative could be agreed by the end of June to put the armed wing of Hezbollah on the EU's list of terrorist organizations on grounds the group is importing Syria's war into Lebanon.

Paris has traditionally been cautious about backing steps to sanction Hezbollah, fearing it could destabilize Lebanon and put U.N. peacekeepers at risk, but in recent weeks has said it would consider all options.

Britain said this week it wants the EU to add the military wing to the list because of evidence the Islamist group was involved in an attack that killed five Israelis in Bulgaria.

North Korea is willing to take China's advice and enter into talks, Chinese state television cited an envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as saying, following weeks of tension on the Korean peninsula after the North's latest nuclear test.

However, that prospect seems unlikely as North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons while the United States insists North Korea must take meaningful steps on denuclearization before there can be talks.

The visit to Beijing by Choe Ryong-hae, a top North Korean military officer, is the most high-level contact between North Korea and China in about six months.

A woman from Josephine County, Oregon, dialed 911 to report that Michael Bellah (pictured) was trying to break into her home, but in response she was told that there are no officers on duty to help her due to budget cuts. After a 10-minute conversation with a 911 dispatcher, Bellah forced his way into the house, choked his former girlfriend and raped her. he was later arrested and pleaded guilty to kidnapping, assault and sex abuse.

The head of the International Monetary Fund appeared in court today where she is expected to be formally charged in connection with a £270million fraud and embezzlement case.

Christine Lagarde’s humiliation is not only a massive personal blow which could lead to her resignation, but one which will plunge the world’s banking system into further ignominy.

The clearly nervous 57-year-old said nothing to reporters as she entered the Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal set up to judge the conduct of France’s government ministers, shortly after 8.30am.

Sources today named one of the suspects as Michael Adebolajo (pictured) who, along with his fellow alleged killer, is a British citizen who converted to a radical form of Islam. They are not thought to have links to terror groups based in Nigeria, such as the jihadist militant organisation Boko Haram. The Foreign Office warns of a high threat from terrorism in the West African nation and raises the prospect of a risk of retaliatory attacks following the French intervention in Mali.

The euro zone may give Greece more time to meet fiscal targets agreed under its international bailout, the chairman of the euro zone finance ministers said in an interview published on Thursday.

"The Commission's approach regarding fiscal consolidation is more flexible, giving certain countries more time to meet their targets. I believe that this will be the case for Greece if needed," Jeroen Dijsselbloem told Kathimerini newspaper.

Greece's European partners agreed last year to extend the maturities and reduce the interest on the nation's bailout funds to help cut its debt mountain to a more sustainable level of 124 percent of GDP in 2020, from an estimated 173 percent this year.

At least 800,000 people across the United States live near hundreds of sites that store large amounts of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate, which investigators are blaming as the source of last month's deadly blast at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, a Reuters analysis shows.

Hundreds of schools, 20 hospitals and 13 churches, as well as hundreds of thousands of households, also sit near the sites. At least 12 ammonium-nitrate facilities have 10,000 or more people living within a mile.

Iran is trying to accelerate its uranium enrichment program, a U.N. nuclear report showed, but experts said it was unclear when Tehran's new machines could start operating and how efficiently they would work.

The Islamic state's progress in introducing next-generation centrifuges is closely watched in the West and Israel as it would enable Tehran to speed up accumulation of material that could be used to build atomic bombs. Iran denies any such aim.

Iran has tried for years to develop centrifuges more advanced than the erratic 1970s-vintage IR-1 machines it now runs, but deploying new models has been dogged by technical hurdles and difficulty in obtaining parts abroad.

Five people were killed and more than 50 wounded in overnight clashes in Tripoli between Lebanese gunmen backing rival factions in Syria's civil war, doctors and security sources said on Thursday.

Tripoli has suffered sporadic sectarian violence since the Sunni Muslim-led uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March 2011, but after a night of mortar, grenade and machinegun fire, residents said this was the fiercest so far.

At least 18 people have been killed and more than 170 wounded in the Lebanese port city since the latest bout of fighting started on Sunday.

Bulgaria's largest party GERB declined on Thursday to try to form a new government, opening the way for the rival Socialists to put together a technocrat administration and end a political impasse.

The center-right GERB won most seats in a May 12 election in the European Union's poorest country but cannot command a majority, as other parties are shunning it after its resignation during protests against low living standards in February.

"Every day, every hour is important for Bulgaria to have a government, so please allow me to return the mandate now, so that you can continue with your consultations," GERB leader Boiko Borisov told Bulgaria's president.

With every fifth Bulgarian living under the poverty line and unemployment at an eight-year high, the country needs a working government to draft a 2014 budget and negotiate EU funds to 2021 - key to reviving the economy and creating new jobs.

British authorities have established that one and possibly both of the men who hacked a soldier to death on a London street was born in Britain of Nigerian descent, a source with knowledge of the investigation said on Thursday.

Local media named the man who was definitely born in the country as 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo and said police raided the home of his Nigerian family in a village near the eastern English city of Lincoln. Both men appeared to have converted to Islam from Christian immigrant backgrounds, British media said.

Both suspects in the attack, conducted in broad daylight on Wednesday afternoon, are in custody after being shot by police.